On Tuesday in Copper, Colorado, I competed in halfpipe for the USASA Nationals. After my first run I was in 2nd place with a score of a 95. The thing is that my run was 4 straight airs, then 5 to 5 then another straight air. The kid in 1st place had a score of 97 or something like that and his run was 9 to 5 to 7 to 3 to 5. I'm a little confused on how I managed to get a score of 95. My coach says the airs were technical grabs (stale fish, nuclear, lein, method) and they were bigger than anyone else's (apart from the kid in first). I was also one of the smoothest people in the comp. Funny thing is I hate half pipe and was going in just trying to land a run (I thought it deserved 75 at best). Then the next day in slope style it was kind of the same deal except I got ripped off on my first run (cab 1 tail press a down bar, back 3 out of an up rail that no one was doing tricks on, crail the big option, back 3 seatbelt the big option) and ended up with a score of 61. My run was not sketched at all and I had the most technical rail run and only a handful of other kids were hitting the big options. This run I knew wasn't a winning run or even a podium run but I thought it deserved a little better than a 61. Judges have the weirdest logic....

Anyone that can help me figure out why I did so well in pipe and so shitty in slope would be cool. I know its tough to guess on this without footage from the comps and without other competitors runs to compare too but slope just seemed more spin to win and less technicalities i suppose.